London Lives

It has been raining since before lunchtime now. At that point it was that small fine rain that you know will soak you to the skin, even with an umbrella. I am still in linen trousers and Birkenstocks and will move on to Suitable Autumn Clothing when I’m good and ready (although the increasing chill will no doubt force my hand over the coming weeks).

So I couldn’t go out at all to buy the goat’s cheese I needed to complete my lunch (having brought in all the rest, too). I spent the afternoon archiving some old documents. There is something so pleasing about throwing papers into the Confidential bin to be taken away for shredding. And after a brief respite, the rain tipped down for the better part of the afternoon.

A gap in said rain afforded a chance to escape home. At the other end of the Tube, it was tipping down heavily again, so I needed to dash for the bus to my house when I usually walk. Bus not too crowded, windows steamed up from breath and the rain, the crying child behind me audible despite my iPod.

The walk to King’s Cross and then from the bus stop at the other end left me somewhat sodden and looking for good food: mini roast potatoes with paprika and rosemary, baked salmon, the leeks left over from yesterday added to the roasting pan with the potatoes. Absolutely lush. And with some very nice Gavi di Gavi to drink too.

‘Patchy Rain’, said the weather woman with wonderful understatement as she described today’s weather. Patchy rain? It’s been enormous and has covered most of my day.

OBITS
It’s probably silly to reminisce about people who’ve died that you don’t ‘know’. The thing is, we do ‘know’ them and they’ve been in our lives longer and to an extent that we don’t always imagine.

Awww. Today we lost two lovelies:

Patrick Swayze (1952 – 2009). A woman at work reflected that she could probably quote Dirty Dancing word-for-word from start to finish.

And Keith Floyd (1943 -  2009),  whose shambolic style masked a great cook and splendid personality. It’s a cliché to say we won’t see his like on TV again, but we won’t.

Farewell both.

Off to the supermarket to pick up things for dinner later (I’m grappling with pastry again for the first time in years…) This took me past the utterly splendid St Mellitus Church, a big beautiful and civic-looking building that rather emerges  from nowhere on Tollington Park. Further down this road is another smaller-scale lovely church and then we get to the Big Houses. These are big slightly shambolic-looking terraces, all red brick , numerous storeys and roomy. Lovely. In the autumn, all the leaves gather in nooks around the gardens and the chequerboard paths, then swoop back out at you, making you feel as though you’re in a street near the end of the world.

For the second time is as many days I have seen (different) women with a butterfly wing tattooed on each breast. Presumably the wings come together depending on how she wears her cleavage. It looks foul.

I’ve remembered that yesterday Mark Gatiss from the League of Gentlemen sat behind me on the No 19 bus, getting on at Charing Cross. I loved those splendid dark series and his work on Crooked House, shown on the BBC last Christmas. The recent Psychoville was hilarious and dark and captured much that the third series of LoG didn’t. I would still love them to make a prequel to the first two series, though.

And ON EDIT (20.59): the pastry dishes turned out a treat. I am v chuffed.